


Afterglow

by soft_lester



Category: Phandom/The Fantastic Foursome (YouTube RPF)
Genre: Established Relationship, Fluff, M/M, dan complains about the heat a lot
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-20
Updated: 2018-09-20
Packaged: 2019-07-14 19:06:38
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,020
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16046696
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/soft_lester/pseuds/soft_lester
Summary: Dan and Phil land in Phoenix and the heat is too much for them.





	Afterglow

**Author's Note:**

> I wrote this a month ago but I've been saving it for now because interactive introverts is ending soon and I wanted to look back on one of my shows :)

One of the first things Dan did when he landed in Phoenix was check the weather on his phone. He knew it was going to be hot—it was the desert in the middle of the summer, after all—but he didn’t anticipate just how hot it would be. It was 46 degrees Celsius outside. It shocked Dan so much that he had to check twice to make sure he had read it correctly. He contemplated how any human being could possibly stay alive in such an extreme temperature.

He nudged Phil to get his attention and showed him the weather on his phone. “Can we just never go outside ever again?”

“I wish,” Phil responded in an amused tone. “We can wait in the airport until the car comes, but sadly we’re going to have to brave the heat to get to the car.”

No amount of mental preparation could have sufficiently braced Dan for the dry, intense August heat that awaited him outside, and he knew that. Sighing, he forced himself to accept that he would have no choice but to endure it as best as he could and hope that he could stay inside for as long as possible while he was here. Looking down at his phone again, he realized that it didn’t cool down at night, either. The low was over 30 degrees Celsius. Why did humans live here?

He and Phil walked slowly off the plane and through the airport. They were putting off facing the inevitable as if they could avoid it altogether. Once the car to take them to the hotel came, they braced themselves to run out of the airport and into the air-conditioned car as fast as they could. But the brutality of the heat outside proved to be less cooperative with their plan than they thought it would. Everything seemed to slow down in this heat, which was so hot that as soon as Dan walked outside it felt like a wave of heat from an oven slammed into his face. Finally, when they settled into the car relief swept over both of them. They were appreciative of the icy cool car seats in the back of the car. The temperature was maintained by the air conditioning, which the driver had set high to combat the outside heat.

The drive from the airport to their hotel only lasted a few minutes. Dan rested his head on his hand and looked out the window at the desert landscape outside. The entire landscape of Phoenix was brown with all sorts of succulents next to the streets and there was something so captivating and so different about the scenery. It was unlike any other city they had visited during their stay in America. Even with the brutal, oppressive heat, Phoenix was special.

When the car dropped them off at the hotel, they dashed inside as fast as they could while making a hefty effort to keep track of all their luggage. Their desperation to return to the comfort of air conditioning once again took over until the front doors of the hotel closed behind them, trapping the chilly air inside with them. After they checked in at the front desk, they took the elevator up to their hotel room where they dropped off their luggage. The first thing Dan did was collapse onto the bed and breathe in a big gasp of the dry, nippy air that the air conditioner kept filtered. He felt relieved to be safe from the oven-hot heat and the massive, intense sun that remained high in the sky.

Meanwhile, Dan realized that Phil’s mind had wandered elsewhere. “Dan, why’s there a bird in the room?” He asked, sounding concerned. Dan sat up and wondered what could possibly be running through Phil’s imagination in that moment. Then he saw what Phil had noticed. It was a stuffed green bird resting on one of the shelves across from the bed. Leave it to Phil to think that it was a real bird.

“Phil,” Dan mumbled, “that’s not a real bird.”

Phil took his eyes away from Dan for a second to look back at the stuffed bird again, and this time his shoulders lowered and Dan could tell that he realized his mistake. “Oh,” he said with a chuckle. “I didn’t even notice.”

Dan rolled his eyes, pretending to be surprised. He tried to hide the smile grew on his face at the comforting sound of Phil’s laughter. “Of course you didn’t.”

After a moment, Phil said, “The person in the lobby said the bar on the roof is nice. We should check it out.”

“Isn’t that outside?” Dan couldn’t stop himself from groaning, remembering how miserably hot it was.

“Yes, it’s outside. Let’s go melt our faces off together. I never said we should stay up there all day. We can just go for a few minutes and then come back in and stay in here, where it’s nice and cool. Come on, it’ll suck but at least we’ll be suffering together.”

Dan picked himself up off the bed after that. “Sure, fine. I’ll do it for you. I won’t enjoy it, but I’ll do it for you.” He moved to Phil and took his hand and gave it a squeeze. Phil held Dan’s hand for a moment and then let go when he moved away from Dan toward the door.

They left their room and made their way down the hallway toward the elevators. That part was easy, but Dan shut his eyes for the entire ride up to the roof in an attempt to brace himself for the sheer intensity of the heat. When the elevator doors opened and Dan saw that the elevator opened to a small hallway that led to the outdoor roof, he reveled in a small burst of relief. He had a few meager seconds of air-conditioned comfort left before he had to face the brutal, oppressive desert heat outside again.

As soon as he opened the door, a gust of wind brought the hot, dry air into his and Phil’s faces. They stepped outside and Dan closed the door behind them. Then Dan forced himself to take a few reluctant steps until the sun started to beam down onto his and Phil’s faces. The heat was worse under the sun, where in the shade it was unbearable at best.

They made their way to the bar on the roof, which was protected from the heat by the roof’s overhang. Misters lined the edge of this roof, releasing cool, misty vapor onto the ground below. Dan slipped through the mist to get to the bar. It was like an outdoor air conditioner and it was enough to cool him down immensely. Standing next to the bar, under the protection of this mister, was a lot more pleasant than standing right under the sun had been.

The bar also doubled as a restaurant, though this wasn’t apparent from first glance. At the other side of the bar sat a patron with a plate of tacos, and those tacos caught Dan’s eye right away. He was glad Phil had dragged him up here if it meant that he could have tacos. Out of the corner of his eye he noticed that Phil was eyeing the tacos, too.

They got tacos and began eating them right away. As they ate a few minutes later, they took a look around the roof of the hotel, taking in the whole scene. It was rather peaceful, even with the couples in the pool taking what looked like rather extensive photoshoots. There were some other people in the pool, too, but not many; it was so hot that Dan wondered why anyone would voluntarily go into the pool when it was right under the sun. Swimming was normally a cooling activity, but he questioned how cooling it was with the desert sun beating down on your back.

The scene as a whole remained quite peaceful until a group of guys carrying a massive canister of beers walked up to a table close to where Dan and Phil sat. One of them moved to the bar and Dan could hear him asking the person behind the bar for plastic cups. Meanwhile, another one of them pulled out small speakers and proceeded to blast music off of his phone. Were they really going to play beer pong on a hotel roof of all places?

A moment later that was exactly what they began to do.

“Can we go back inside now?” Dan asked, leaning against Phil.

“Not until we finish our tacos.”

“Alright,” Dan responded before he took a bite out of the taco in his hands.

***

Once they were back in their hotel room, they decided they ought to film a new gaming video. They had meant to film one for the last few days, but they were too busy with performing and traveling to find the time to sit down and do it. Now that they were in a hotel with a big TV, as opposed to the more cramped tour bus, they wanted to play Overcooked 2. It was a brand new game and they wanted to take their time playing it, even if that meant they had to edit most of the footage out for the sake of keeping the video a reasonable length.

They filmed for so long that the sun had set behind them and not even the afterglow before nightfall could provide enough illumination without the aid of the hotel room’s lights. They certainly did take their time playing, but it was fun, so Dan was glad that they took their time.

The most memorable part of filming was when they heard the woman staying in the room next to them call reception to complain about the noise; to her it was such a nuisance that she even requested to move to another room so she wouldn’t be next to two screaming men.

“We’re going to have to edit that out, but I need to tweet this,” Phil struggled to say before his heavy laughter overtook him. It was the kind of laugh where he was laughing so hard that he shut his eyes and stuck his tongue out between his teeth. Dan loved to poke fun at it and call it “weird,” even though deep down he thought it was incredibly cute.

After Phil hit the tweet button, Dan looked over his shoulder as he scrolled through the replies to his tweet and picked a few people to respond to. This was always one of their favorite things about social media: the ability to interact with their fans. After Phil sent out some replies, he locked his phone and raised his eyes to meet Dan’s.

The corners of Dan’s lips turned up into a smile and he couldn’t stop himself from leaning in and planting a short kiss on Phil’s lips. It was so light and gentle that their lips hardly brushed against each other’s at all.

“Hi,” Dan said in an airy voice after he pulled away and looked into Phil’s shiny blue eyes again. His heart fluttered when he saw Phil smiling back at him. It was such a small, simple gesture, but sometimes he couldn’t help but feel a pang of happiness remembering that his love was a mutual feeling.

Phil paused before saying, “You look quite content with yourself.”

“I am.”

“Good. I love you.”

“I love you, too. Let’s watch something on Netflix.”

Phil laughed. “What do you have in mind?”

Dan shrugged. “I dunno. We’ll figure something out. I’ll go get my laptop.” He reluctantly stood and crossed the room to fish his laptop out of his backpack. He brought it to the large bed where Phil was now waiting for him. He settled onto the bed as he opened his laptop and pulled up Netflix. Less than a moment later, Phil wrapped his arm around Dan’s shoulders and Dan slumped down to lean against Phil.

“Alright,” Dan said. “Let’s figure out what we’re going to watch.”

**Author's Note:**

> thank you for reading!! please follow me on twitter @philspuns!


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